Several of our readers have commented that our coverage of late has been skewed a bit toward the Democratic side. And they’re right, but the Dems have been the ones in the headlines lately, with Barack Obama (finally) claiming his party’s nomination and Hillary Clinton (finally) endorsing him. But to be fair, it’s time to turn our attention back to the GOP and its presumptive nominee, John McCain. So here are some things that have been going on in the McCain universe:

• McCain will participate in a town hall–style meeting tonight at Federal Hall in New York, televised by Fox News.
• The Republican nominee will give a speech next week in Canada about free trade, an issue he has emphasized on the campaign trail.
• On the “Today” show yesterday, McCain was asked if he could provide a timeline for bringing troops home from Iraq. He said that his priority was to reduce casualties. Democrats, including John Kerry, Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and Joe Biden, jumped on McCain’s response, calling him “out of touch.”
• Also on “Today,” McCain touched on rising gas prices, saying that he doesn’t expect them to go down anytime soon: “The point is, oil companies have got to be more participatory in alternate energy, in sharing their profits in a variety of ways, and there is very strong and justifiable emotion about their profits.”

Before a loud and cheering crowd at the National Building Museum in Washington, not far from the White House, Hillary Clinton finally announced:

“The way to continue our fight now to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.

“Today as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him and I ask of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me.”

By suspending her campaign, Clinton keeps her pledged delegates, can still raise money, and has the option to start things up again if, as the Associated Press put it, “circumstances change before the Denver convention.” As soon as her speech ended, though, some of her pledged superdelegates moved over into the Obama camp, including Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Maine Gov. John Baldacci.

Despite Barack Obama’s clinching the Democratic Presidential nomination last Tuesday, Hillary Clinton’s speech that night at Baruch College in New York sounded anything but resigned and accepting.

Rather, she sounded as though she were still on the campaign trail, as she outlined her platform, offered touching anecdotes, and continually mentioned “the 18 million” primary votes that allowed her campaign to creep forward long after most analysts had dismissed it. The day after her speech, many commentators interpreted such comments as, “I want the nearly 18 million people who voted for me to be respected and heard,” as a not-so-subtle demand for continuing political influence, perhaps in the Vice-Presidency.

However, Clinton may have had another, more immediate aim in in delaying her resignation. At this moment, her greatest worry is not securing the vice-presidency, but settling the more than $20 million in debt her campaign has accrued in stumbling after Obama. Legally, she only has until the Democratic National Conventon in August to raise any further funds, and her political capital will only devalue in the intervening months: if she is to raise that money, she needs to do it right away.

This helps explain perhaps the most curious aspect of Clinton’s speech: her continual return to the theme of, not merely voter support, but fundraising. With the persistence of a third grade teacher leading her class through the multiplication table, she spoke first of, “millions of Americans…raising money for the first time,” then of those “who came to HillaryClinton.com and showed the tangible support that they felt in their hearts.” Later in the speech, she told the story of a married couple–two veterans of Iraq–who donated their spending money to her campaign. However, the masterstroke came at the end; having given a speech more fit to inspire and energize the beginning of a campaign, one rife with references to fundraising, Hillary then closed with this simple plea for her “18 million supporters”: “I want to hear from you. I hope you’ll go to my Web site at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can.”

And what form might this assistance take? A simple trip to the HillaryClinton.com removes all doubt: a huge area at the top of the page is devoted, first to a space to register with the campaign by giving a name, address, and email (the better to SPAM you with), and second, to a bright yellow sign reading “Show Hillary Your Support,” directly above a red button reading, “Contribute.” Simple arithmetic tells the story: if she collects $5 from 4 million of those ostensible 18 million supporters, her campaign will be in the black once more. This move only reinforces what commentators have long understood: while she lacks Obama’s warmth and charisma, there is no more subtle and ambitious political mind in America than Hillary Clinton.

HT: Steve French

Hillary Clinton, now that Barack Obama seems to have clinched the Democratic party’s nomination, has the power hungriness to leak that she would be interested in running with Obama.

Why? For the sake of unifying the party, right? “For the party” rhetoric would be the big, heaping hill of beans that Hillary and Bill would have us believe. The Clinton’s lust for power is unprecedented and Obama unwisely running with the Clintons would certainly set John McCain for a victory in November.

CNN projects that Obama’s steady stream of superdelegate endorsements, combined with the delegates he received from Tuesday’s primaries, put him past the 2,118 threshold and would lead to a definitive nomination by the Democrats.

“Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America,” Obama said. “Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”

If he is chosen, would it be wise to take Hillary up on her offer to help him? Would she not actually be a huge liability? Liberals don’t even like Hillary Clinton. The recent vitriol from those at Vanity Fair magazine is just a glimpse and how unwise, silly, and potentially dangerous it would be to have a Clinton as a running mate. It is sad, but people actually hate the Clintons.

Todd Purdum over at Vanity Fair had this to say about Bill Clinton recently:

Old friends and longtime aides are wringing their hands over Bill Clinton’s post-White House escapades, from the dubious (and secretive) business associations to the media blowups that have bruised his wife’s campaign, to the private-jetting around with a skirt-chasing, scandal-tinged posse. Some point to Clinton’s medical traumas; others blame sheer selfishness, and the absence of anyone who can say “no.” Exploring Clintonworld, the author asks if the former president will be consumed by his own worst self.

Why would Obama even take Hillary up on her offer after the mud she’s thrown at him over the past few months when it became clear that the Clinton’s lust for power may go unrealized. Given the Clinton’s history, how could he even trust her?

Winning against an Obama/Clinton ticket would like Kobe Bryant playing basketball with a middle-school basketball team. The nation is not ready to have, as some have argued, two candidates whose views are so close to those of socialistic European nations. Obama would be wise to choose a more moderate candidate, which will not be hard to find, as a buffer for the explosion of government programming he has proposed.

McCain cannot lose against an Obama/Clinton ticket. It would be the political gift that keeps on giving. The Democratic party is in such pathetic disarray that joining the “wonder twins” (Obama and Clinton) would do very little for a party who sets rules and then changes them at the end.

Now that Obama is making history, what type of running mate should he choose? What should McCain do to prepare to run against Obama, when the Democrats officially knight him?

The Associated Press is reporting that Hillary Clinton has told congressional colleagues that she would be open to being the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, saying she would consider it if it would help the party win the White House.

Peter Schweizer, writing at Examiner.com, looked at various research studies on honesty and discovered the following:

• 57 percent of those who call themselves “very liberal” said it was OK to cheat on your taxes compared to just 20 percent of those labeling themselves as “very conservative” (World Values Survey).
• Consider the following: “You lose your job. Your friend’s company is looking for someone to do temporary work. They are willing to pay the person in cash to avoid taxes and allow the person to still collect unemployment. What would you do?” Forty-nine percent of liberals would go along with the scheme, while only 21 percent of conservatives said they would agree to it (National Cultural Values Survey).
• Liberals were two and a half times more likely to say they illegally download music on the Internet (Barna Research).
• College students who lean toward “conservatism” have “higher levels of ethical values” (Journal of Business Ethics).
• There’s a link between “political liberalism” and “lying in your own self-interest” (Journal of Psychology).

Schweizer provided other examples and went on to point out:

The honesty gap is … not a result of “bad people” becoming liberals and “good people” becoming conservatives. In my mind, a more likely explanation is bad ideas. Modern liberalism is infused with [the] idea that truth is relative. Surveys consistently show this. And if truth is relative, it also must follow that honesty is subjective.

Sixties organizer Saul Alinsky, who both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say inspired and influenced them, once said the effective political advocate “doesn’t have a fixed truth; truth to him is relative and changing, everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”

Ah, the pitfalls of living in a postmodern world. Thank God that both liberals and conservatives have access to objective Truth. Now, if they’d only embrace it.

HT: Make It Man

According to NBC and ABC News, Bill Clinton began a speech in South Dakota today saying (video here):

“I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, ’til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president.”

Does this signal the beginning of the end for Hillary Clinton? The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder offers some other telling clues here and here. Of course, Clinton aides deny that she’ll drop out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, USA Today reports: “Hillary Clinton has sent out a fundraising pitch called “The last two races,” asking people to contribute $5 to help her get out the vote tomorrow in South Dakota and Montana.

The presidential primary season is finally winding down, with the last two contests in South Dakota and Montana tomorrow. Although Hillary Clinton picked up another lopsided primary win over the weekend, this time in Puerto Rico, her chances to win the Democratic nomination are hanging by a thread, especially after Saturday’s Rules Committee decision. Still, the Democratic Party’s version of the Energizer Bunny keeps trudging on. Her latest strategy is to try to convince superdelegates committed to Barack Obama to change their minds and back her. And, of course, she can challenge Saturday’s compromise decision that left her with fewer delegates than she had hoped.

The problem the Democrats were having with what to do with the Florida and Michigan delegates was finally decided today. The two states’ delegations will be seated at the convention with each delegate receiving a half vote. In Michigan, Hillary Clinton got 69 delegates and Barack Obama, who wasn’t on the state’s ballot, 59. Florida’s delegate distribution was based on the actual primary results, with Clinton getting 105 pledged delegates and Obama picking up 67.

The compromise decision made by the Rules Committee was not well received by the Clinton contingent in attendance, in fact, according to AP’s account, the scene at times got a bit ugly with shouting matches going back and forth, interrupting the proceedings:

“We just blew the election!” a woman in the audience shouted. The crowd was divided between cheering Obama supporters and booing Clinton supporters.

“This isn’t unity! Count all the votes!” another audience member yelled.

Clinton supporter and member of the Rules Committee Harold Ickes angrily informed his colleagues that Clinton reserves the right appeal the matter to the Credentials Committee, which could drag the matter out all the way to the Democratic convention in August.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have pledged to fellow Democrats, in hardly uncertain terms, to do their best to end the party’s marathon nominating war, like, yesterday—at least, certainly before it reaches the national convention in August.

On a San Francisco talk radio show Thursday, Reid said he’d spoken with Pelosi and party chairman Howard Dean and all three agreed they should take steps to avoid a contest drawn all the way out to August. “We all are going to urge our folks next week to make a decision very quickly,” he said. According to The New York Times, Reid later bested that vow, telling another group in L.A. that the nominee “would be known by Wednesday”—the day after the bookending primaries in South Dakota and Montana.

He and Pelosi both have stayed neutral so far, but Pelosi, the highest-ranking Democrat, promised Wednesday to The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that she’d “step in” absent a resolution in June. Slightly more circumspect than Reid about more immediate action, Pelosi added vaguely that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “cannot take this fight to the convention. It must be over before then.”

A speedy resolution, of course, is what Pelosi and her party preferred from the beginning. And Obama, apparently, is betting on its imminence; he told reporters Wednesday that, as far as he’s concerned, the general election begins Wednesday. But the possibility that Clinton could drag the race out—likely for better rather than worse—to its bitter, internecine end still has conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, with his Operation Chaos, rooting for her. It’s effectively impossible, however, for Clinton to reach 2,026, that magic number of delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination before the convention. (Using the Times’s handy calculator, even if Clinton repeated her all-time best performance—her 77 percent floor wiping in Arkansas—she’d still need 83 percent of the remaining superdelegates.)

Nevertheless, Clinton has dug her heels in, ensconced for the long haul. The Times also reported yesterday on her campaign’s threefold endgame strategy: (1) though she can’t eclipse it, cut into Obama’s delegate lead by lobbying to seat as many delegates as possible from Florida and Michigan, whose standing at the convention was stripped away after their states’ parties moved the primaries up in violation of DNC rules; (2) add to her lead in the popular vote with a strong finish in Puerto Rico’s primary on June 1; and (3) persuade superdelegates to join her side, as she aimed to do yesterday with this letter and memo, by stressing both (1) and (2) as well as the Electoral College argument, a calculus based on the logic that, come November, Clinton would outperform Obama by winning more states (both blue and red) in the general election. This is particularly persuasive, she hopes, for Democrats who’ll never forget how their candidate won the popular vote in 2000 but lost under the state-by-state Electoral College system.

The result of (1) doesn’t look good, given even the best-case scenario for her (seating half the penalized delegates) theorized yesterday by party lawyers. The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meets Saturday to determine how many of the two rogue states’ delegates to seat. Clinton’s supporters have promised to “flood it” in protest.